Hill Rag

The Literary Hill

A Compendium of Readers, Writers, Books, & Events

by: Karen Lyon

Reuss Delivers Mohr

“Can a feeling be preserved in a photograph?” asks the protagonist of Mohr: A Novel. Directed to a busy clerk in a film shop, Max Mohr’s question goes unanswered, so he responds to it himself. “I think so,” he says. The time is the mid-1930s and the place is Shanghai. Having fled the simmering anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany, Mohr is taking pictures of his new life to send home to his wife and daughter. “Proof of my existence,” he tells the clerk.

While the conversation may be fictional, those photographs and others from the time not only exist but provided the genesis for local author Frederick Reuss’s ground-breaking new novel. Some of them also appear within its pages. There is Mohr just visible behind the partially-lowered window of his car, his Chinese driver Wong striking a jaunty pose alongside. Here are Käthe and young Eva at the farm in Germany, clad in aprons, overlooking a sunny field of flowers. The story of Mohr moves gracefully between Shanghai and Wolfsgrub, from the hospitals where Max tends wounded soldiers to the fields where Käthe cultivates blue delphinium. Their remarkable love story spans both a continent and one of the most troubling eras in world history.

The snapshots were part of a cache of family photographs that Reuss uncovered nearly a decade ago. His search began many years earlier, when he inherited a portrait of his great great uncle Max from his grandfather, who knew only that Mohr had been a doctor, a writer, and a decorated veteran of World War I who died in Shanghai in 1937. Reuss was able to locate some of Mohr’s published works at the Library of Congress, but the thread of his life story proved to be as thin as the fragile paper on which they were printed. He was forced to give up the search until 1997, when one of Mohr’s novels was published in Germany with an afterword by his grandson. Reuss flew to Munich to meet him. That “living encounter” enabled him to embrace the rich and conflicted lives of Max Mohr and his family and, in effect, to step into the photographs.

Mohr: A Novel begins and ends with the unnamed narrator musing over his role. “There is nothing wrong with supposing you belong to a continuum of human events that links you to a vanished past,” he says, “part of which you may come to know, and all of which you are free to imagine.” In imagining the lives of these people from our shared past and his own, Reuss brings to life a significant and haunting moment in history. And he does it with his trademark finesse. His previous three novels—Horace Afoot, Henry of Atlantic City, and The Wasties—were critically acclaimed as “highly original,” “quietly entertaining, thought-filled,” and “unexpectedly poignant.” Mohr: A Novel, with its moving and intimate portrayals, innovative approach, and supple writing is sure to be hailed as a tour de force.

A Year of War

Open this book to any page and you’re immediately there, experiencing a small slice of the panoramic horror that was the American Civil War. Familiar images such as Matthew Brady’s photographs display here an engaging new crispness, while others offer fresh perspectives. November 4: wounded soldiers litter the ground at a field hospital at Savage’s Station, Virginia Peninsula; June 22: a young African American orderly no bigger than a child sits somberly atop a horse belonging to Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff; July 21: a woman kneels in her ruined parlor, the focus of an etching called Cave life in Vicksburg. The American Civil War: 365 Days by Margaret E. Wagner, with an introduction by Gary E. Gallagher, contains more than 500 such photographs, drawings, manuscripts, and posters—but they tell only part of the powerful story.

Complementing the images, the facing pages offer informative text enhanced by excerpts from diaries and letters, memoirs, speeches, and other first-person accounts. Along the bottom of each page runs a timeline of significant—or sometimes lesser-known but intriguing—events that occurred on a given calendar day. The potent mix of words and images provides a kind of snapshot, limning the immediacy and the personal nature of the war in a way that either alone could not. The book is organized along twelve themes: Gathering Momentum, War in the East, Wartime Politics, War on the Water, Fighting for Freedom (focusing on the struggles of African Americans), Turning Points, Army Life, War in the West, Behind the Lines, Valor and Sacrifice, and An Uneasy Peace. Selected works from the book are included in the “American Treasures” exhibition that is now at the Library of Congress.

Other New Books of Local Interest

Unburnable (2006) by Marie-Elena John. A former Africa development specialist, John divides her time between D.C. and Antigua, so it’s only fitting that her debut novel also evokes both locales. Set partly in contemporary Washington and partly in post-World War II Dominica, Unburnable is the story of Lillian Baptiste, who fled her island home as a teenager when she discovered that the legendary women whose lives were the subject of Carnival songs—a beautiful but insane prostitute and a healer hanged for murder—were actually her mother and grandmother. Twenty years later, she returns to face her troubled past and try to heal the emotional scars it caused. In tracing the lives of these three generations of women, John offers an engrossing narrative that weaves together West Indian history, African culture, and American sensibilities.

The House: The History of the U.S. House of Representatives (2006) by Robert V. Remini. This definitive history traces the evolution of “the People’s House” from its first session in April 1789 through the Conservative Revolution of the 1990s. Drawing on the resources of the Library of Congress—manuscripts, congressional records, newspapers accounts, letters, diaries, memoirs, and biographies—as well as interviews with current and former lawmakers, historian Remini offers an encyclopedic look at the events and personalities that shaped the legislature. The book was commissioned by Congress, but students of history will be pleased to note that its author doesn’t pull any punches. In the modern era, he writes, Newt Gingrich helped usher in “an era of incivility and personal attack and partisanship” that continues today. The official historian of the House of Representatives, Remini won the National Book Award for his three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson.

Rocketeers and Gentlemen Engineers: A History of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and What Came Before (2006) by Tom Crouch. This account of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics—written on the occasion of its 75th anniversary—relates the significant contributions that the AIAA and its predecessor organizations have made to the evolution of flight. From early efforts to establish aeronautics as a distinct profession through technological advances spurred by war and the remarkable achievements of the Space Age, this readable and well-researched history is a veritable “who’s who” of the visionary engineers who helped shape our view of the sky. Crouch is a senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum; his other books include The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (1989) and Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age (2003).

----------------------------------

DC PUBLIC LIBRARIES
www.dclibrary.org

Northeast Neighborhood Library
330 7th St., NE
202.698.3320

Capitol Hill Mystery Book Club
1st Mon. of the month, 6:30 p.m.

Southeast Neighborhood Library
403 7th St., SE
202.698.3377

Capitol Hill Book Club (nonfiction)
3rd Tues. of the month, 6:30 p.m.

Spanish Storytime (ages 3-7)
Sat., May 6, 20, 27, 11:00 a.m.

Raising Healthy Children (adults)
Thurs., May 18, 7:00 p.m.

Book Sale

Sat., May 6, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m.

FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY
201 East Capitol St., SE
202.544.4600
Box Office: 202.544-7077
www.folger.edu

Folger Poetry

A Career of Influence
Charles Simic
Mon, May 1, 7:30 p.m.

PEN/Faulkner

Annual Award Ceremony
Sat., May 6, 7:00 p.m.

Second Annual Children’s Literature Festival
Washington International School
Sun., May 21, noon

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
202.707.0911
www.loc.gov

Book Talks

Renewing American Culture and the Pursuit of Happiness
Scott T. Massey and Theodore Malloch
Thurs., May 25, 5:00 p.m.

The Pale Blue Eye
Louis Bayard
Thurs., June 1, noon

Poetry Readings

As Luck Would Have it
Ted Kooser
Thurs., May 11, 6:45 p.m.

Imaginary Places
Richard Hedderman and others
Tues., May 23, noon

CAPITOL HILL BOOKS
657 C St., SE
202.544.1621
www.capitolhillbooks-dc.com

Second Saturday:
10% off all books; wine & cheese 4-7PM
Featured Dead Author: Herman Hesse

RIVERBY BOOKS
417 East Capitol St., SE
202.543.4342
www.riverby.com

‘A Space Inside’Reading Series

The Zookeeper: A Novel
Alex MacLennan
Wed., May 24, 7:00 p.m.

TROVER SHOP
221 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
202.547.2665
www.trover.com

UPSTAIRS AT MR. HENRY’S
601 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
202.546.8412

The Schreiber Theory
David Kipen
Wed., May 31, 7:00 p.m.

If you know of a book, author, or event that reflects “The Literary Hill,” please write to Karen Lyon c/o The Hill Rag or e-mail her at hillwriters@yahoo.com.

UPSTAIRS AT MR. HENRY’S
Renowned as the place where singer Roberta Flack got her start, Mr. Henry’s now adds the spoken word to its repertoire. At a new series called “Upstairs at Mr. Henry’s,” organizer James L. Nash invites you to meet speakers informally over dinner and drinks and then hear a short presentation. In March, local author James Swanson killed them softly with a talk about Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. On May 31, David Kipen will discuss his witty and insightful new book, The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History, in which he proposes reclassifying movies according to who wrote—not directed—them. The events begin at 7 PM and are free, but patrons buy their own food and drink. Space is limited, so call 202-547-6920 or e-mail CHG4600@aol.com for reservations.


<--previous Page	Print This Page
The Literary Hill
A Compendium of Readers, Writers, Books, & Events
by: Karen Lyon
Reuss Delivers Mohr “Can a feeling be preserved in a photograph?” asks the protagonist of Mohr: A Novel. Directed to a busy clerk in a film shop, Max Mohr’s question goes unanswered, so he responds to it himself. “I think so,” he says. The time is the mid-1930s and the place is Shanghai. Having fled the simmering anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany, Mohr is taking pictures of his new life to send home to his wife and daughter. “Proof of my existence,” he tells the clerk. While the conversation may be fictional, those photographs and others from the time not only exist but provided the genesis for local author Frederick Reuss’s ground-breaking new novel. Some of them also appear within its pages. There is Mohr just visible behind the partially-lowered window of his car, his Chinese driver Wong striking a jaunty pose alongside. Here are Käthe and young Eva at the farm in Germany, clad in aprons, overlooking a sunny field of flowers. The story of Mohr moves gracefully between Shanghai and Wolfsgrub, from the hospitals where Max tends wounded soldiers to the fields where Käthe cultivates blue delphinium. Their remarkable love story spans both a continent and one of the most troubling eras in world history. The snapshots were part of a cache of family photographs that Reuss uncovered nearly a decade ago. His search began many years earlier, when he inherited a portrait of his great great uncle Max from his grandfather, who knew only that Mohr had been a doctor, a writer, and a decorated veteran of World War I who died in Shanghai in 1937. Reuss was able to locate some of Mohr’s published works at the Library of Congress, but the thread of his life story proved to be as thin as the fragile paper on which they were printed. He was forced to give up the search until 1997, when one of Mohr’s novels was published in Germany with an afterword by his grandson. Reuss flew to Munich to meet him. That “living encounter” enabled him to embrace the rich and conflicted lives of Max Mohr and his family and, in effect, to step into the photographs. Mohr: A Novel begins and ends with the unnamed narrator musing over his role. “There is nothing wrong with supposing you belong to a continuum of human events that links you to a vanished past,” he says, “part of which you may come to know, and all of which you are free to imagine.” In imagining the lives of these people from our shared past and his own, Reuss brings to life a significant and haunting moment in history. And he does it with his trademark finesse. His previous three novels—Horace Afoot, Henry of Atlantic City, and The Wasties—were critically acclaimed as “highly original,” “quietly entertaining, thought-filled,” and “unexpectedly poignant.” Mohr: A Novel, with its moving and intimate portrayals, innovative approach, and supple writing is sure to be hailed as a tour de force. A Year of War Open this book to any page and you’re immediately there, experiencing a small slice of the panoramic horror that was the American Civil War. Familiar images such as Matthew Brady’s photographs display here an engaging new crispness, while others offer fresh perspectives. November 4: wounded soldiers litter the ground at a field hospital at Savage’s Station, Virginia Peninsula; June 22: a young African American orderly no bigger than a child sits somberly atop a horse belonging to Ulysses S. Grant’s chief of staff; July 21: a woman kneels in her ruined parlor, the focus of an etching called Cave life in Vicksburg. The American Civil War: 365 Days by Margaret E. Wagner, with an introduction by Gary E. Gallagher, contains more than 500 such photographs, drawings, manuscripts, and posters—but they tell only part of the powerful story. Complementing the images, the facing pages offer informative text enhanced by excerpts from diaries and letters, memoirs, speeches, and other first-person accounts. Along the bottom of each page runs a timeline of significant—or sometimes lesser-known but intriguing—events that occurred on a given calendar day. The potent mix of words and images provides a kind of snapshot, limning the immediacy and the personal nature of the war in a way that either alone could not. The book is organized along twelve themes: Gathering Momentum, War in the East, Wartime Politics, War on the Water, Fighting for Freedom (focusing on the struggles of African Americans), Turning Points, Army Life, War in the West, Behind the Lines, Valor and Sacrifice, and An Uneasy Peace. Selected works from the book are included in the “American Treasures” exhibition that is now at the Library of Congress. Other New Books of Local Interest *Unburnable* (2006) by Marie-Elena John. A former Africa development specialist, John divides her time between D.C. and Antigua, so it’s only fitting that her debut novel also evokes both locales. Set partly in contemporary Washington and partly in post-World War II Dominica, Unburnable is the story of Lillian Baptiste, who fled her island home as a teenager when she discovered that the legendary women whose lives were the subject of Carnival songs—a beautiful but insane prostitute and a healer hanged for murder—were actually her mother and grandmother. Twenty years later, she returns to face her troubled past and try to heal the emotional scars it caused. In tracing the lives of these three generations of women, John offers an engrossing narrative that weaves together West Indian history, African culture, and American sensibilities. The House: The History of the U.S. House of Representatives (2006) by Robert V. Remini. This definitive history traces the evolution of “the People’s House” from its first session in April 1789 through the Conservative Revolution of the 1990s. Drawing on the resources of the Library of Congress—manuscripts, congressional records, newspapers accounts, letters, diaries, memoirs, and biographies—as well as interviews with current and former lawmakers, historian Remini offers an encyclopedic look at the events and personalities that shaped the legislature. The book was commissioned by Congress, but students of history will be pleased to note that its author doesn’t pull any punches. In the modern era, he writes, Newt Gingrich helped usher in “an era of incivility and personal attack and partisanship” that continues today. The official historian of the House of Representatives, Remini won the National Book Award for his three-volume biography of Andrew Jackson. Rocketeers and Gentlemen Engineers: A History of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and What Came Before (2006) by Tom Crouch. This account of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics—written on the occasion of its 75th anniversary—relates the significant contributions that the AIAA and its predecessor organizations have made to the evolution of flight. From early efforts to establish aeronautics as a distinct profession through technological advances spurred by war and the remarkable achievements of the Space Age, this readable and well-researched history is a veritable “who’s who” of the visionary engineers who helped shape our view of the sky. Crouch is a senior curator at the National Air and Space Museum; his other books include The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright (1989) and Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age (2003). ---------------------------------- DC PUBLIC LIBRARIES www.dclibrary.org Northeast Neighborhood Library 330 7th St., NE 202.698.3320 Capitol Hill Mystery Book Club 1st Mon. of the month, 6:30 p.m. Southeast Neighborhood Library 403 7th St., SE 202.698.3377 Capitol Hill Book Club (nonfiction) 3rd Tues. of the month, 6:30 p.m. Spanish Storytime (ages 3-7) Sat., May 6, 20, 27, 11:00 a.m. Raising Healthy Children (adults) Thurs., May 18, 7:00 p.m. Book Sale Sat., May 6, 10:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY 201 East Capitol St., SE 202.544.4600 Box Office: 202.544-7077 www.folger.edu Folger Poetry A Career of Influence Charles Simic Mon, May 1, 7:30 p.m. PEN/Faulkner Annual Award Ceremony Sat., May 6, 7:00 p.m. Second Annual Children’s Literature Festival Washington International School Sun., May 21, noon LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 202.707.0911 www.loc.gov Book Talks Renewing American Culture and the Pursuit of Happiness Scott T. Massey and Theodore Malloch Thurs., May 25, 5:00 p.m. The Pale Blue Eye Louis Bayard Thurs., June 1, noon Poetry Readings As Luck Would Have it Ted Kooser Thurs., May 11, 6:45 p.m. Imaginary Places Richard Hedderman and others Tues., May 23, noon CAPITOL HILL BOOKS 657 C St., SE 202.544.1621 www.capitolhillbooks-dc.com Second Saturday: 10% off all books; wine & cheese 4-7PM Featured Dead Author: Herman Hesse RIVERBY BOOKS 417 East Capitol St., SE 202.543.4342 www.riverby.com ‘A Space Inside’Reading Series The Zookeeper: A Novel Alex MacLennan Wed., May 24, 7:00 p.m. TROVER SHOP 221 Pennsylvania Ave., SE 202.547.2665 www.trover.com UPSTAIRS AT MR. HENRY’S 601 Pennsylvania Ave., SE 202.546.8412 The Schreiber Theory David Kipen Wed., May 31, 7:00 p.m. If you know of a book, author, or event that reflects “The Literary Hill,” please write to Karen Lyon c/o The Hill Rag or e-mail her at hillwriters@yahoo.com. UPSTAIRS AT MR. HENRY’S Renowned as the place where singer Roberta Flack got her start, Mr. Henry’s now adds the spoken word to its repertoire. At a new series called “Upstairs at Mr. Henry’s,” organizer James L. Nash invites you to meet speakers informally over dinner and drinks and then hear a short presentation. In March, local author James Swanson killed them softly with a talk about Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. On May 31, David Kipen will discuss his witty and insightful new book, The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History, in which he proposes reclassifying movies according to who wrote—not directed—them. The events begin at 7 PM and are free, but patrons buy their own food and drink. Space is limited, so call 202-547-6920 or e-mail CHG4600@aol.com for reservations.